Tag: Evan Dunham

“It’s usually not like this.” With that text I found myself apologizing to a UFC-virgin for the first time in a long time. My friend had just told me that she was at home watching the the show on FOX, without any provocation from me mind you. “This is that fighting you like, right???”. I assured her that the event had yet to capture the energy and excitement indicative of the sport. “I’m going back and forth between this and figure skating,” she replied. I can’t really say I blame her, either.

While we expected plenty of grappling in the bouts themselves, the wrestling theme seemed to carry on throughout the production at large. The usually-charismatic Jon Jones wrestled with his notes, relying on them not just for in-depth fight analysis but for simple things like his thoughts on fighting Rashad. The opening act wrestled with fatigue, leading to a performance as exhausting for fans as it was for the competitors in the cage. And once again, FOX wrestled with an underwhelming broadcast that left the most exciting action behind in the prelims.

Enough belly aching about the show itself, let’s take a look at what made such a promising event so forgettable for the masses.

(Believe me when I tell you that I take each and every fight with 100% seriousness.)

On the heels of his second round Fight of the Night earning performance over John Olav Einemo at UFC 131, Dave Herman had a bit of momentum going for him. The Team Quest boldly claimed that “Jiu Jitsu doesn’t work” and then proceeded to handily defeat an ADCC champion in his UFC debut. But Herman’s hype train was nearly derailed in September, when he tested positive for marijuana and steroids in the aftermath of his aforementioned win over Einemo. The details surrounding his testing were sketchy to say the least, but in light of the circumstances he was pulled out of his UFC 136 bout with Mike Russow nonetheless. Well it seems “Peewee’s” pee is now clean, as he has been booked for a fight with Dutch submission specialist Stefan Struve for the UFC’s debut on FuelTV this February.

But let’s not admit defeat so soon. We’ll be liveblogging the Shields vs. Ellenberger main card on CagePotato.com starting at 9 p.m. ET, and it would be nice if a few of you showed up to keep us company. Could it be one of those “crap on paper, bonkers in reality” events? Who knows, but consider the following…

All Eyes on Jake: So far, Jake Shields‘s UFC career has consisted of an underwhelming (and razor-thin) split-decision victory over Martin Kampmann, and a rout at the hands of Georges St. Pierre. His dominant stretch of eight-straight stoppage victories in 2006-2009 are a distant memory in the minds of MMA fans, and he needs a dramatic win here, badly. Shields’s dance partner, Jake Ellenberger, has been spent years fighting for recognition, and with four straight Octagon wins over serious competition, he’s starting to get it. Stylistically, the fight might not be a barn-burner, but it could have career-altering implications for the headliners.

There may not be an event this weekend, but that doesn’t mean the boys behind the scenes at Zuffa aren’t working hard. Fights have been announced this weekend at a furious pace, and there seems to be no end in sight. Let’s hope Joe Silva’s getting some of that “Anderson Silva money”. Without further ado:

For George Sotiropulos, the past four months since his disappointing UFC 127 loss to Dennis Siver have been about finding a balance in his life between training and all of the extrinsic factors that prevented him from focusing fully on it. According to G-Sots, who has been noticeably absent from the limelight since the fight, he has set the wheels of change in motion to ensure that he isn’t being stretched too thin and that he continues to improve as a fighter and as a person.

We caught up with the UFC lightweight contender recently and spoke with him at length about the fight with Siver, the factors that he feels contributed to the first “real” loss on his record and the steps he’s taken to make sure he makes the best of the learning experience to ensure that he doesn’t make the same mistakes twice inside and outside of the Octagon.

Evan Dunham will have to wait a little longer before he can erase his last Octagon appearance from the minds of fans. The UFC lightweight prospect, who is 0-2 in his past two outings has been forced to pull out of a scheduled UFC 132 bout with George Sotiropoulos (14-3, 7-1 UFC) on July 2 because of an undisclosed injury.

(“FINISH HIM!” shouted the spooky narrator from Mortal Kombat, who had clearly never seen Jon Fitch fight before. Props: MMAConvert)

After their UFC 127 main event ended in a frustrating majority draw, BJ Penn and Jon Fitch have been re-booked for an immediate rematch at UFC 132 (July 2, Las Vegas). The UFC confirmed the news late last night. Both fighters were initially disappointed in their performance, but have since come around to the idea that they both should have won and a rematch is the only logical option. The fight will lead off the live Facebook-stream portion of the evening. (Kidding. It’ll probably be on the main card somewhere.) Maybe this match is a good time to test out the UFC’s proposed use of five-round fights for non-title features. No? Terrible idea?

One of the most impressive performances from Saturday nights’ Fight for the Troops II card was logged by Melvin Guillard, who took out fast-rising lightweight Evan Dunham in emphatic fashion with a first round TKO, garnering him "Knockout of the Night" honors in the process.

We had Melvin on last week’s episode of The Bum Rush Radio Show and he had some interesting things to say about the affect of his move to Team Jackson, his plans for 2011, his desire to be on TUF again and how overrated he thinks Kenny Florian is.

Check out what the self-dubbed "More Mature Assassin" had to say after the jump.

However — (*clears throat*) – let’s not get carried away here. Let’s not get too crazy. Let’s not do the thing we seem to always do when a guy wins a big fight and start to completely overvalue Guillard based on this one performance. What he proved with his beating of Dunham on Saturday night was either one of two things. One, it could be that Greg Jackson is helping him to finally harness the physical tools he’s possessed from the beginning and has Guillard on the verge of becoming something special in the lightweight division. Or two, he was just a terrible match-up of styles for Dunham.